A blog on food, exercise and healthy living

Sunday Strawberry and Saturday Night Pesto…

Happy Sunday everyone. I don’t know about you – but I am freezing, and I’m wearing a few layers. I am pretty much ready for winter to be over. However, tomorrow they are forecasting a high of 47 degrees – gosh, that is almost 50! I am excited. The Red Sox are in Spring training which means baseball is right around the corner – and so is spring, sort of. At least that is the way I am going to think about it. I’m sticking to my train of thought as I shiver.

So, last night I had a pretty amazing homemade dinner. I did not take a picture of it because it was not all that pretty – but it tasted so fresh and amazing, I decided to tell you about it without a photograph anyway.

You might recall that this summer I grew basil in the backyard. In October I finally had to harvest the basil and I made some pretty amazing pesto. I make my pesto thick and I never use as much olive oil as they call for because I think it makes the mixture to oily and very heavy (from a taste stand point). I learned from Bittman one important key for when you are making pesto that you are going to freeze. Do not add the cheese to it if you are going to put it in the freezer. So I didn’t. I had one cup of pesto to freeze, and I divided it into 1/4 cup servings (that can serve two people maybe?)

Yesterday I had the foresight to take one of the little containers of pesto out of the freezer and let it sit out and thaw. I cannot believe I was thinking about dinner at 10am and that pesto actually came into my head, but thankfully it did. This is most likely because my mom made homemade chicken parm on Wednesday night. We had a little pasta on the side that night, Thursday I had some for lunch. There was STILL left over on Friday so we had it on Friday night for dinner. Don’t you just love meals that are A. homemade and B. multiple meals for the rest of the week? We used Whole Foods chicken breast, too so I felt better eating the meat (no hormones added, etc).

Well, by Friday we were out of spaghetti so I made some more. I always miss judge portions for pasta and I usually make too much. Friday night was no exception. I drizzled a little olive oil on the left over pasta and put it in the fridge. That’s when I woke up thinking of pesto and pasta for Saturday night’s dinner. Sometimes I love nights when I am on my own for dinner because I can make something nice and simple – and delicious and I only have to make enough for one.

So anyway, the pesto was nicely thawed out by the late afternoon. My mom and I both smelled it – and you know what? It had a fragrance of summertime. I loved it. I was so glad that I had thought enough ahead to freeze pesto in October and eat it in February 🙂 It made a great dinner. I heated up the spaghetti just a little in the microwave. Then I added two spoonfuls of pesto to the bowl, added a handful of chopped grape tomatoes, a pinch of shredded mozzarella cheese and some parmesan (from Italy) grated on top. I warmed the bowl for 30 seconds in the microwave, stirred and put it back in for 20 seconds. You do not want this sort of thing super hot. Just warmed through. Or you can always eat it cold. I like it both ways. But tonight I wanted my cheese melty and incorporated throughout the bowl.

It was fantastic. Seriously.

So, this morning I went back to really lame basics again an had cereal for breakfast. This time I added the pieces of banana again and I also added a strawberry or two. Strawberries in February??? Yes. They are from Florida. I feel a tad guilty about eating them because they are not local and I know a lot of jet fuel or truck gas went into getting my strawberries to the local market – but you know what??? There is almost nothing better than tasting an amazing strawberry in FEBRUARY. Yes. That’s right. It is out of season and I’m loving it:

Seriously – how good does that look? I love the color. For the record, these strawberries are amazing. They actually taste sweet. Not bitter, which is how a lot of out of season strawberries can taste. I love them.

Happy Sunday! I’ll be baking sugar cookies today and it’s 11 o’clock in the morning and my mom is already starting her famous French onion soup. I can’t wait for it.

Yesterday I watched Julia Child on PBS (the French Chef show, of course) and she literally made me laugh. I love her so much, I could watch her each and every day. Sigh.